I had thought that all the books about Martin Waldseemüller’s 1507 map of the world — you know, the one that first named “America” — would have come and gone with the 2007 quincentennial of the map, but I’d forgotten about Toby Lester’s book, The Fourth Part of the World: The Race to the Ends of the Earth, and the Epic Story of the Map That Gave America Its Name, which comes out next week. More information about the book is available on the author’s eponymous website.

Lester has been busy promoting his new book: his Boston Globe article explores how Waldseemüller’s map influenced Copernicus’s cosmological thinking (via Catholicgauze). He’ll also appear at the Library of Congress’s Mary Pickford Theater in Washington on November 5 at noon, and at the Newberry Library in Chicago on November 19 at 6 PM (via MapHist).

Here I had thought the opportunity to read up on Waldseemüller had come and gone. Maybe I should order a batch of books to read and review collectively.

Update, Oct. 28: Lester on the BBC News Magazine, focusing on the rediscovery of the last surviving copy. Via MapHist.

Previously: Waldseemüller Symposium at LOC in May; The Washington Post on Waldseemüller; Which Waldseemüller?; Waldseemüller Map Exhibit Opens Thursday; Upcoming Books on Waldseemüller; More About Waldseemüller; Waldseemüller Map Formally Transferred; Waldseemüller Map Stamp Issued; Encasing Waldseemüller’s Map; Waldseemüller’s Map Goes for £545,600; Auction of First Map of the New World.

• Buy The Fourth Part of the World at Amazon.com
• Buy The Naming of America at Amazon.com
• Buy Putting “America” on the Map at Amazon.com